1. Field
Methods and apparatuses consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to an image processing apparatus and a method for connecting a HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) thereof, and, more particularly, to an image processing apparatus connected to a plurality of source devices, and a method for controlling the HEC connections thereof
2. Description of the Related Art
Current trends indicate that as the dissemination of digital contents becomes more popular, a growing number of users are connecting multimedia source devices, such as camcorders, DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) players, video game consoles, set-top boxes, etc., to image apparatuses such as monitors and digital TVs. These image apparatuses process and display the digital contents provided from the multimedia source devices.
The High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) has been standardized as a digital interface for data transmission between the multimedia source devices and image apparatuses. HDMI is a multimedia interface which combines together uncompressed digital audio and video, and transmits the combined digital audio and video. HDMI is becoming a standard for protecting digital contents in a high-resolution image apparatus.
Since HDMI version 1.4, Ethernet has been a feature of HDMI, and is made available in the HEC. However, in circumstances where HECs from various source devices are used at the same time in a restricted upstream bandwidth environment, a problem can arise in that the quality of the network tends to deteriorate, and the difficulty lies in responding to such a problem.
Conventionally, when a plurality of multimedia source devices are connected through HEC, and the available upstream bandwidth is exceeded, this affects all of the connected multimedia source devices.